Huáyì (simplified Chinese: 华裔; traditional Chinese: 華裔; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hôa-è) refers to ethnic Chinese residing outside of China.[37] Another often-used term is 海外华人 (Hǎiwài Huárén), a more literal translation of overseas Chinese; it is often used by the PRC government to refer to people of Chinese ethnicities who live outside the PRC, regardless of citizenship.

The term shǎoshù mínzú (少数民族) is added to the various terms for overseas Chinese to indicate those in the diaspora who would be considered ethnic minorities in China. The terms shǎoshù mínzú huáqiáo huárén; shǎoshù mínzú huáqiáo huárén; and shǎoshù mínzú hǎiwài qiáobāo (少数民族海外侨胞) are all in usage. The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the PRC does not distinguish between Han and ethnic minority populations for official policy purposes.[36] For example, members of the Tibetan diaspora may travel to China on passes granted to certain overseas Chinese.[38] Various estimates of the overseas Chinese minority population include 3.1 million (1993),[39] 3.4 million (2004),[40] 5.7 million (2001, 2010),[41][42] or approximately one tenth of all overseas Chinese (2006, 2011).[43][44] Cross-border ethnic groups (跨境民族, kuàjìng mínzú) are not considered overseas Chinese minorities unless they left China after the establishment of an independent state on China's border.[36]

In the 19th century, the age of colonialism was at its height and the great Chinese diaspora began. Many colonies lacked a large pool of laborers. Meanwhile, in the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong in China, there was a surge in emigration as a result of the poverty and ruin caused by the Taiping rebellion.[51] The Qing Empire was forced to allow its subjects to work overseas under colonial powers. Many Hokkien chose to work in Southeast Asia (where they had earlier links starting from the Ming era), as did the Cantonese. The city of Taishan in Guangdong province was the source for many of the economic migrants. For the countries in North America and Australasia, great numbers of laborers were needed in the dangerous tasks of gold mining and railway construction. Widespread famine in Guangdong impelled many Cantonese to work in these countries to improve the living conditions of their relatives. Some overseas Chinese were sold[by whom?] to South America during the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (1855–1867) in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong. After World War II many people from the New Territories in Hong Kong emigrated to the UK (mainly England) and to the Netherlands to earn a better living.

From the mid-19th century onward, emigration has been directed primarily to Western countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and the nations of Western Europe; as well as to Peru where they are called tusán, Panama, and to a lesser extent to Mexico. Many of these emigrants who entered Western countries were themselves overseas Chinese, particularly from the 1950s to the 1980s, a period during which the PRC placed severe restrictions on the movement of its citizens. In 1984, Britain agreed to transfer the sovereignty of Hong Kong to the PRC; this triggered another wave of migration to the United Kingdom (mainly England), Australia, Canada, USA, Latin America and other parts of the world. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 further accelerated the migration. The wave calmed after Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty in 1997. In addition, many citizens of Hong Kong hold citizenships or have current visas in other countries so if the need arises, they can leave Hong Kong at short notice. In fact, after the Tiananmen Square incident, the lines for immigration visas increased at every consulate in Hong Kong. More recent Chinese presences have developed in Europe, where they number nearly a million, and in Russia, they number over 600,000, concentrated in Russian Far East. Chinese who emigrated to Vietnam beginning in the 18th century are referred to as Hoa.

In recent years, the People's Republic of China has built increasingly stronger ties with African nations. As of August 2007, there were an estimated 750,000 Chinese nationals working or living for extended periods in different African countries.[54] An estimated 200,000 ethnic Chinese live in South Africa.[55] In a 2007 New York Times article, Chad Chamber of Commerce Director estimated an "influx of at least 40,000 Chinese in coming years" to Chad. As of 2006[update] as many as 40,000 Chinese lived in Namibia,[56] an estimated 80,000 Chinese in Zambia[57] and 50,000 Chinese in Nigeria.[58] As many as 100,000 Chinese live and work across Angola.[59] As of 2009[update] 35,000 Chinese migrant workers lived in Algeria.[60]

Russia’s main Pacific port and naval base of Vladivostok, once closed to foreigners and belonged to China until the late 19th century, as of 2010[update] bristles with Chinese markets, restaurants and trade houses.[61] Experts predict that the Chinese diaspora in Russia will increase to at least 10 million by 2010 and Chinese may become the dominant ethnic group in the Russian Far East region 20 to 30 years from now.[62][63][64] Other experts discount such stories estimating the numbers of Chinese in Russia at less than half a million, most of whom are temporary traders.[65]

A growing Chinese community in Germany consists of around 76,000 people as of 2010[update].[66] An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 Chinese live in Austria.[67]

The Chinese in Southeast Asian countries have established themselves in commerce and finance.[68] In North America, Europe and Oceania, occupations are diverse and impossible to generalize; ranging from catering to significant ranks in medicine, the arts, and academia.

The Chinese usually identify a person by ethnic origin instead of nationality. As long as the person is of Chinese descent, that person is considered Chinese, and if that person lives outside of China, that person is overseas Chinese. The majority of PRC Chinese do not understand the overseas Chinese experience of being a minority, as ethnic Han Chinese comprise approximately 91% of the population.[69]

In countries with small Chinese minorities, the economic disparity can be remarkable. For example, in 1998, ethnic Chinese made up just 1% of the population of the Philippines and 4% of the population in Indonesia, but have wide influence in Philippines and Indonesian private economy.[70] The book World on Fire, describing the Chinese as a "market-dominant minority", notes that "Chinese market dominance and intense resentment amongst the indigenous majority is characteristic of virtually every country in Southeast Asia except Thailand and Singapore".[71]

This asymmetrical economic position has incited anti-Chinese sentiment among the poorer majorities. Sometimes the anti-Chinese attitudes turn violent, such as the May 13 Incident in Malaysia in 1969 and the Jakarta riots of May 1998 in Indonesia, in which more than 2,000 people died, mostly rioters burned to death in a shopping mall.[72] During the colonial era, some genocides killed tens of thousands of Chinese.[73][74][75][76][77]

It is commonly held that a major point of friction is the apparent tendency of overseas Chinese to segregate themselves into a subculture.[citation needed] For example, the anti-Chinese Kuala Lumpur Racial Riots of 13 May 1969 and Jakarta Riots of May 1998 were believed to have been motivated by these racially-biased perceptions.[81] This analysis has been questioned by some historians, most notably Dr. Kua Kia Soong, the principal of New Era College, who has put forward the controversial argument that the May 13 Incident was a pre-meditated attempt by sections of the ruling Malay elite to incite racial hostility in preparation for a coup.[82] In 2006, rioters damaged shops owned by Chinese-Tongans in Nukuʻalofa.[83] Chinese migrants were evacuated from the riot-torn Solomon Islands.[84]

Ethnic politics can be found to motivate both sides of the debate. In Malaysia, overseas Chinese tend to support equal and meritocratic treatment on the expectation that they would not be discriminated against in the resulting competition for government contracts, university places, etc., whereas many "Bumiputra" ("native sons") Malays oppose this on the grounds that their group needs such protections in order to retain their patrimony. The question of to what extent ethnic Malays, Chinese, or others are "native" to Malaysia is a sensitive political one. It is currently a taboo for Chinese politicians to raise the issue of Bumiputra protections in parliament, as this would be deemed ethnic incitement.[85]

Many of the overseas Chinese who worked on railways in North America in the 19th century suffered from racial discrimination in Canada and the United States. Although discriminatory laws have been repealed or are no longer enforced today, both countries had at one time introduced statutes that barred Chinese from entering the country, for example the United States Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (repealed 1943) or the Canadian Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 (repealed 1947).

In Australia, Chinese were targeted by a system of discriminatory laws known as the 'White Australia Policy' which was enshrined in the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901. The policy was formally abolished in 1973, and in recent years Australians of Chinese background have publicly called for an apology from the Australian Federal Government[86] similar to that given to the 'stolen generations' of indigenous people in 2007 by the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Overseas Chinese vary widely as to their degree of assimilation, their interactions with the surrounding communities (see Chinatown), and their relationship with China.

Thailand has the largest overseas Chinese community and is also the most successful case of full assimilation, and they claim Thai identity. For over 400 years, Thai-Chinese have largely intermarried and assimilated with their compatriots. The present Thai monarch, Chakri Dynasty, is founded by King Rama I who himself is partly Chinese. His predecessor, King Taksin of the Thonburi Kingdom, is the son of a Chinese immigrant from Guangdong Province and was born with Chinese name. His mother, Lady Nok-iang (Thai: นกเอี้ยง), was Thai (and was later awarded the feudal title of Somdet Krom Phra Phithak Thephamat).

In the Philippines, Chinese from Guangdong were already migrating to the islands from the 9th century, and have largely intermarried with either indigenous Filipinos or Spanish colonisers. Their descendants would eventually form the bulk of the elite and ruling classes in a sovereign Philippines. Since the 1860s, most Chinese immigrants have come from Fujian; unlike earlier migrants, Fujianese settlers rarely intermarried, and thus form the bulk of the "unmixed" Chinese Filipinos. Older generations have retained Chinese traditions and the use of Minnan (Hokkien), while the vast majority of younger generations largely communicate in English, Filipino, and other Philippine languages, and have largely layered facets of both Western and Filipino culture onto their Chinese cultural background.

In Cambodia, between 1965 to 1993, people with Chinese names were prevented from finding governmental employment, leading to a large number of people changing their names to a local, Cambodian name. Indonesia, and Myanmar were among the countries that do not allow birth names to be registered in foreign languages, including Chinese. But since 2003, the Indonesian government has allowed overseas Chinese to use their Chinese name or using their Chinese family name on their birth certificate.

In Vietnam, Chinese names are pronounced with Sino-Vietnamese readings. For example, the name of the previous Chinese president, 胡锦涛 (pinyin: Hú Jǐntāo), would be transcribed as "Hồ Cẩm Đào". In Western countries, the overseas Chinese generally use romanised versions of their Chinese names, and the use of local first names is also common. Vietnamese people have adopted the Chinese traditions, ancient Chinese characters, philosophy such as Confucianism, Taoism for thousands of years during the rule of China[87] until the establishment of Ngo dynasty (Han-Nom: 吳朝), it is easier for the Hoa people to adopt the Vietnamese culture due to their similarities, however some Hoa still prefer maintaining Chinese cultural background (See Sinic world or Adoption of Chinese literary culture). The official census from 2009 accounted the Hoa population at some 823,000 individuals and ranked 6th in terms of its population size. 70% of the Hoa live in cities and towns, mostly in Ho Chi Minh city while the remainder live in the countryside in the southern provinces.[16]

On the other hand, in Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, overseas Chinese have maintained a distinct communal identity, though the rate and state of being assimilated to the local (in this case multicultural) society, is currently on par with that of other Chinese communities (see Peranakan).

The usage of Chinese languages by overseas Chinese has been determined by a large number of factors, including their ancestry, their migrant ancestors' "regime of origin", assimilation through generational changes, and official policies of their country of residence. The general trend is - increase of Mandarin-speaking Chinese among the new arrivals, making it the most common language of chinatowns.[88]

In Singapore, a nation with an ethnic Chinese majority population, Mandarin is recognized as one of its official languages, along with simplified Chinese characters, in contrast to other overseas Chinese communities which almost exclusively used traditional Chinese characters until the 1990s, when nationals of the PRC began to emigrate in substantial numbers and brought with them the simplified Chinese characters. Although ethnic Chinese in Singapore are predominantly of Hokkien descent, the government of Singapore discourages the usage of non-Mandarin Chinese languages through the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The official policy in Singapore also has an impact on neighboring Johor, in southern Peninsular Malaysia, where Mandarin is predominantly spoken among the Chinese communities there. As the Singapore government actively promotes English as the common language of the multiracial society of Singapore, younger Chinese Singaporeans are mostly bilingual in Mandarin and English while the older generation speak the dialects.

Malaysia is the only country besides Mainland China and Taiwan that has a complete Chinese education system, right from primary school to university.[89]Chinese Malaysians speak a wide variety of dialects and Mandarin, their prevalence being concentrated around particular metropolitan centres: the Penang, Klang, Kelantan and Malacca groups are predominantly Hokkien-speaking (Penang has its own version of Hokkien, Kelantan has its own version of Hokkien too); the Kuala Lumpur, Seremban, Kuantan and Ipoh groups are predominantly Cantonese, Yue and Hakka-speaking; whereas in East Malaysia (Malaysian Borneo), Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka and Mandarin are widely spoken, except in Sibu, where the Fuzhou dialect is predominant, and in Sandakan, where Cantonese and Hakka are widely spoken. Regardless of location, however, younger generations tend to speak Malaysian Mandarin, which is taught in schools. A significant number of Chinese are English-educated, who speak mainly English. Most Chinese Malaysians can speak both Malay, the national language, and English, which is widely used in business and at tertiary level. However, a lot of them speak it with a very pronounced Chinese accent, which sounds very different from the standard Malay spoken by the majority of the population. In this respect, there exists a language divide in Malaysia up till today, which varies depending on where the person is brought up. For example, in the east coast state of Kelantan, most (if not all) Kelantan Chinese are able to speak the Kelantanese Malay dialect fluently, whereas in other states, they may not be able to fluently converse in the local dialect (For example, Penang and Negeri Sembilan). Cantonese is the lingua franca in Kuala Lumpur and many places as many Chinese can understand it, but may not be able to speak it perfectly.

Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia had, for decades, been subjected to official, and at times draconian, assimilation policies, and as a result majority of them are no longer proficient in Chinese language (particularly ethnic Chinese who lived in Java). Originally, majority of the population emigrated from Fujian and Guangdong province of South China, during Taiping Rebellion era in the 19th century. Some originated hundred of years ago, as result of trade between Ming dynasty China and early colonial era Dutch East Indies. Most of Chinese who lived in Sumatra did not give up some of the dialects. Most of the ethnic Chinese in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, are still able to speak creole Hokkien within their community. This is due to the number of generations that have lived in Indonesia and their exposure to cultural assimilation. Most of the ethnic Chinese who live in Java have a long line (10 generations) of forefathers before them, where the ethnic Chinese who live in Sumatra have a relatively short generation of forefathers (4 or 5 generations). There is also a small population of Hakka Chinese in Indonesia, most notably in Bangka Belitung province, Pontianak and Singkawang where they form a significant part of the local population, while in the areas from Pontianak to Kendawangan on the southern tip of West Kalimantan are populated by Teochew speakers much like Bangkok, Thailand.[90] As to their identity, Chinese Indonesians generally prefer to be considered Indonesians than Chinese (which term denotes People's Republic of China citizen).

Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia made up of 1.20% of the country population (as of 2010 census data), however other source stated that there are about 10 to 12 million Chinese living in the country, adding up to 5-6% of Indonesia population. The Chinese in Indonesia is collectively considered as one of the wealthiest group of overseas Chinese in the world, with many of their private companies currently debut on the world stage. However, they have been glass-walled into going for any major political position in the country. Younger generation of Indonesian Chinese speaks fluent Bahasa Indonesia and English.

Thailand is home to the largest and most integrated Overseas Chinese community. As already said above, the present Thai monarch, Chakri Dynasty, was founded by King Rama I, who himself was partly Chinese. His predecessor, King Taksin of Thonburi Dynasty, was the son of Chinese immigrants from Guangdong Province and was born with a Chinese name. The majority of Prime Ministers in Thailand are of Chinese descent. Most ethnic Chinese in Thailand live in cities such as Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Hat Yai and Nakhon Sawan. A large majority of them belong to the Teochew dialect group of Han Chinese. A small number of Chinese people, mainly belonging to the Yunnanese dialect group, also live in the northern part of Thailand which is in close proximity to their homeland in Yunnan province of China. Charoen Pokphand Group, founded by Thai-Chinese Chearavanont family, is currently the single largest foreign investors in China.[91]

There is some controversy about the size of the Chinese minority in Vietnam: official figures tend to float around the 1 million figure (1.1% of total population), but outside sources tend to suggest a higher number. Not all Chinese (known as Hoa) are officially recognized by the government of Vietnam: the Hoa category excludes the San Diu (mountain Chinese) and the Ngai. A large number of Chinese people live in Saigon city and most of them today speak Cantonese, though there is also a large group who speak Teochew, tracing their ancestral homeland to the Guangdong province in China, from where their ancestors came around the 18th century.[92]

Laos is one of South-East Asia’s most ethnically diverse countries: a somewhat surprising situation given the relatively small size and population of around 6 million, but probably due to its location, mountainous terrain and tropical climate. There are also Chinese minorities in Laos, though their exact number is difficult to ascertain: Chinese presence goes back centuries, tending to be concentrated in the cities of Vientiane and Savannakhet.[95]

Although the Burmese Chinese (or Chinese Burmese) officially make up three percent of the population, the actual figure is believed to be much higher. Among the under-counted Chinese populations are: those of mixed background;[96] those that have registered themselves as ethnic Bamar to escape discrimination; illegal Chinese immigrants that have flooded Upper Burma since the 1990s (up to 2 million by some estimates[97]) but are not counted due to the lack of reliable census taking.[98] The Burmese Chinese dominate the Burmese economy today.[99] They also have a very large presence in Burmese higher education, and make up a high percentage of the educated class in Burma. Most Burmese Chinese speak Burmese as their mother tongue. Those with higher education also speak Mandarin and/or English. The use of Chinese dialects still prevails. Hokkien (a dialect of Min Nan) is mostly used in Yangon as well as in Lower Burma, while Taishanese (a Yue dialect akin to Cantonese) and Yunnanese Mandarin are well preserved in Upper Burma.

Most Chinese Filipinos are trilingual, speaking a Chinese, English, and a Philippine language, most often, Tagalog or Cebuano. Older Chinese Filipinos generally prefer to use Chinese, whereas those younger, prefer to use either English or a Philippine language, a result of the prohibition of Chinese language education enacted during the dictatorship of President Marcos (1972–1986).

The most widely spoken Chinese language is Hokkien (there is a native form of Hokkien called Lan-nang-oe). Hokkien is used at home, informally in schools, and in business among Chinese Filipinos. The Hokkien spoken in Xiamen (Amoy), Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou are the most common forms of Hokkien in the Philippines. Other languages such as Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Teochew are also spoken, albeit by a very tiny and decreasing population, because of intermarriage with the more dominant Hokkien speakers, and because Hokkien is the preferred Chinese variant in the Philippines.

Mandarin is still taught at all Chinese schools as the "Standard Chinese", although most Chinese Filipinos do not speak it at home and do not attain the same level of fluency as those of Chinese descent in China, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Due to extensive albeit informal contacts with the Ministry of Education of the Taiwan (ROC) during 1950-1990, the traditional Chinese script as well as the bopomofo are still used, although these are gradually being eased out in favor of simplified Chinese characters and pinyin starting 2005, with Chinese Language textbooks increasingly imported from both China and Singapore.

As part of a recent trend, partly due to increased contacts with other overseas Chinese in Hong Kong and Singapore, more Chinese Filipino families are now opting to use English as their first language at home. There is also a trend among some young Chinese Filipinos to relearn Hokkien, a result of increasing pride in being "ethnic Chinese" and the popularity of Taiwanese films and shows, which is associated with the rise of China in the 21st century.

Despite the perceived widespread assimilation of the Chinese Filipinos into the general Philippine population, most still form part of a "Tsinoy" community where Chinese culture is celebrated and practiced. Despite the fact that not all Chinese Filipinos can fluently speak Hokkien or any other Chinese variant, most can still understand at least some Hokkien.

On the other hand, most Chinese Mestizos (called chhut-si-ia in Hokkien), or those who are of mixed Chinese and Filipino, Spanish, and/or American ancestry, tend to downplay their Chinese roots and invariably consider themselves Filipino. Most Chinese Mestizos speak Tagalog or English.

Many overseas Chinese populations in North America speak some variety of Chinese. In the United States and Canada, Chinese is the third most spoken language.[106][107][108]Yue dialects have historically been the most prevalent variety due to immigrants being mostly from southern China from the 19th century up through the 1980s.[107][109] However, Mandarin is becoming increasingly more prevalent due to the opening up of the PRC.[109]

In New York City at least, although Mandarin is spoken as a native language among only 10% of Chinese speakers, it is used as a secondary dialect among the greatest number of them and is on its way to replace Cantonese as their lingua franca.[110] Although Min Chinese or Hoochew, the majority of Min Chinese, is spoken natively by a third of the Chinese population there, it is not used as a lingua franca because speakers of other dialect groups do not learn Min.[110]

In Richmond (part of the Greater Vancouver metropolitan area in Canada), 44% of the population is Chinese.[111] Chinese words can be seen everywhere from local banks to grocery stores. In the broader Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area, 18% of the population is Chinese. Similarly in Toronto, which is the largest city in Canada, Chinese people make up 11.4% of the local population with the higher percentages of between 20-50% in the suburbs of Markham, Richmond Hill and within the city's east end, Scarborough.[112] Cantonese and Mandarin are the most popular Chinese languages.

Economic growth in the People's Republic of China has given mainland Chinese more opportunities to emigrate. A 2011 survey showed that 60% of Chinese millionaires plan to emigrate,[113] mostly to the USA or Canada. The EB-5 Investment Visa allows many powerful Chinese to seek U.S. citizenship, and recent reports show that 75% of applicants for this visa in 2011 were Chinese.[114] Chinese multimillionaires benefited most from the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program in the U.S. Now, as long as one has at least US$500,000 to invest in projects listed by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where it is possible to get an EB-5 green card that comes with permanent U.S. residency rights, but only in states specified by the pilot project.[115]

Both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan maintain highly complex relationships with overseas Chinese populations. Both maintain cabinet level ministries to deal with overseas Chinese affairs, and many local governments within the PRC have overseas Chinese bureaus. Both the PRC and ROC have some legislative representation for overseas Chinese. In the case of the PRC, some seats in the National People's Congress are allocated for returned overseas Chinese. In the ROC's Legislative Yuan, there used to be eight seats allocated for overseas Chinese. These seats were apportioned to the political parties based on their vote totals in the ROC, and then the parties assigned the seats to overseas Chinese party loyalists. Now, political parties in the ROC are still allowed to assign overseas Chinese into the Legislative Yuan, but they are not required to. Most of these members elected to the Legislative Yuan hold dual citizenship, but must renounce their foreign citizenship before being sworn in.

Overseas Chinese have sometimes played an important role in Chinese politics. Most of the funding for the Chinese revolution of 1911 came from overseas Chinese.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the ROC tended to seek the support of overseas Chinese communities through branches of the Kuomintang based on Sun Yat-sen's use of expatriate Chinese communities to raise money for his revolution. During this period, the People's Republic of China tended to view overseas Chinese with suspicion as possible capitalist infiltrators and tended to value relationships with southeast Asian nations as more important than gaining support of overseas Chinese, and in the Bandung declaration explicitly stated that overseas Chinese owed primary loyalty to their home nation. On the other hand, overseas Chinese in their home nations were often persecuted for suspected or fabricated ties to "Communist China". This was used as a pretext for the massacres of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries.

After the Deng Xiaoping reforms, the attitude of the PRC toward overseas Chinese changed dramatically. Rather than being seen with suspicion, they were seen as people who could aid PRC development via their skills and capital. During the 1980s, the PRC actively attempted to court the support of overseas Chinese by among other things, returning properties that had been confiscated after the 1949 revolution. More recently PRC policy has attempted to maintain the support of recently emigrated Chinese, who consist largely of Chinese seeking graduate education in the West. Many overseas Chinese are now investing in People's Republic of China providing financial resources, social and cultural networks, contacts and opportunities.[116][117]

The Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China, which does not recognise dual citizenship, provides for automatic loss of PRC citizenship when a former PRC citizen both settles in another country and acquires foreign citizenship. For children born overseas of a PRC citizen, whether the child receives PRC citizenship at birth depends on whether the PRC parent has settled overseas: "Any person born abroad whose parents are both Chinese nationals or one of whose parents is a Chinese national shall have Chinese nationality. But a person whose parents are both Chinese nationals and have both settled abroad, or one of whose parents is a Chinese national and has settled abroad, and who has acquired foreign nationality at birth shall not have Chinese nationality" (Art 5).[118]

With People's Republic of China's growing economic strength and the influence on the world, many overseas Chinese have begun to migrate back to China even though many mainland Chinese millionaires are considering emigrating out of the nation for better opportunities.[119]

With China being the second largest economy in the world, this trend is expected to rise even more in the future as China's vigorous economy is poised to surpass the United States in the upcoming decade.[citation needed][when?] For instance, in the case of Indonesia and Burma, political and ethnic strife has cause a significant number of people of Chinese origins to re-emigrate. Other Southeast Asian countries with large Chinese communities such as Malaysia, the economic rise of People's Republic of China has made it an attractive destination for many Malaysian Chinese to re-emigrate. As the Chinese economy opens up, Malaysian Chinese act as a bridge because many Malaysian Chinese are educated in the United States or Britain but can also understand the Chinese language and culture making it easier for potential entrepreneurial and business to be done between the people among the two countries.[120]

Overseas Chinese are estimated to control 1.5 to 2 trillion USD in liquid assets and have considerable amounts of wealth to stimulate economic power in China.[121][122] Overseas Chinese often send remittances back home to family members to help better them financially and socioeconomically. China ranks second after India of top remittance receiving countries in 2010 with over 51 billion USD sent.[123] The overseas Chinese business community of Southeast Asia, known as the bamboo network, has a prominent role in the region's private sectors.[124]

^ This number includes 443,566 people called Joseonjok (조선족). Joseonjok people are the Koreans who have Chinese citizenship. The 181,428 Chinese people who are ethnic Chinese (calculated from 624,994-443,566) in Korea are called Hwagyo (화교). (See reference)